2023-05-27 02:21:14
An adequate detection, both in local and metastatic pathology, promotes more precise treatments. There have been important positive changes in prostate cancer in recent years.
In the last 5-10 years, prostate cancer screening has experienced a remarkable growth. The incorporation of novel imaging techniques “has completely revolutionized diagnosis,” says Juan Gómez Rivas, from the Urology Service of the Hospital Clínico de Madrid. As he indicates, clinicians based the diagnosis of prostate cancer on digital rectal examination, PSA determination and biopsy, to a certain extent random. The success rate of this performance was that approximately one in three patients biopsied had a tumor.
“At the moment, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as in the case of the breast, helps us to know where the suspected tumor is, which has improved the diagnosis: from that third of patients, it has become more than half of the patients who have a positive MRI have prostate cancer. In fact, the clinical guidelines indicate that all patients in whom prostate cancer is suspected should have an MRI before performing a biopsy.
It is also a cost-effective diagnostic measure because MRI not only directs the biopsy, but also “discerns a group of patients who do not need it because they do not have a tumor. Avoid biopsies, overdiagnosis and overtreatment”, says Gómez Rivas.
The professional, whose line of interest focuses on genitourinary tumors, and more specifically prostate cancer, also alludes to the support provided by PET with a very specific prostate membrane marker, PSMA.
This is another new Nuclear Medicine imaging technique that has changed the diagnosis of recurrences because it allows assessing where very low PSA values are found. “This methodology allows for treatments very directed. For example, if a patient has PSMA uptake in a node in the right iliac fossa, radiation therapy to that area is performed or salvage lymphadenectomy is performed. If the patient is metastatic, he is treated as such early before it could be seen in a CT or scintigraphy. Undoubtedly, both imaging and PSMA have revolutionized the prostate cancer scenario.”
liquid biopsy
Continuing with the diagnosis, the team from the Hospital Clínico de Madrid is going to launch an assay on the detection of circulating tumor cells in the diagnosis of prostate cancer; “Liquid biopsy for patients in whom the tumor has not been detected by conventional tests, but there is suspicion. In prostate cancer there are tests of these characteristics, but they are not validated or implemented in guidelines or power studies”.
The purpose is to carry out a clinical trial to verify the role of liquid biopsy in prostate cancer. A pilot project of these characteristics is going to begin in the United States, to which Europe will now join with the trial planned by the Clinical Hospital. It is, says the professional, a project for ‘novo’ diagnosis with a protocol designed by clinicians.
“For recurrent or disseminated tumor, and in most metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer clinical trials, for example, measurement of circulating tumor cells is a surrogate marker of response, although it is not established in clinical practice.”
In the field of basic research, the Urology team is also working -in collaboration with the Complutense University of Madrid- on a FIS project, of which Gómez Rivas is the principal investigator, for the development of biohybrid materials in nerve recovery after prostatectomy radical “in order to improve the quality of life of patients with regard to continence and sexual function”.
At this time, and in general terms, the treatment of localized prostate cancer is guided by three options: in low-risk cancer, active surveillance is applied -new recommendation regarding the damage of 2023 of the European Association of Urology through PSA, touch and imaging techniques-, because “it is known that, in these cases, the overall survival of patients at 10-15 years is 100%”.
Development of biohybrid materials
Patients with intermediate or high-risk localized tumors should undergo therapies with curative intent. Today what is approved and accepted is surgery and/or radiotherapy. Surgery is a treatment that has good oncological results, but it involves two functional aspects with implications for quality of life: sexual dysfunction and incontinence.
“Robotics has contributed a lot to improving continence, but sexual function depends not only on robotic surgery but also on the baseline situation of the patient; if he is obese, if he is diabetic and/or hypertensive, logically he will not recover like a patient who does not present these comorbidities ”.
The urologist points out that during the surgical act there may be destruction of the erection or continence nerves, either because the tumor was in that location or due to damage from the surgery itself. In this way, “they are trying to design materials to install them and leave them in the area of nerve injury at the time of surgery, with the aim of producing a recovery of these damaged nerves by releasing growth factors, among others, so that the nerve sheaths can recover and rehabilitate”. The trial is currently in the experimental mouse model phase.
In any case, the results obtained will be relevant because achieving the rehabilitation of this type of nervous structure is of the utmost importance for the subsequent quality of life of those affected; above all “for a profile that could be summarized in young men, with good sexual function before the intervention and do not have a very aggressive tumor”, emphasizes the professional.
At this time, the percentage of incontinent patients after radical prostatectomy is estimated to be less than 10%, thanks in part to the benefits of robotics. In the case of sexual function, the figures are highly variable: between 50-60% of patients may express some sexual function problem, taking into account the initial baseline situation and the previous sexual function of each patient.
The management of localized, advanced, and metastatic prostate disease has also seen notable innovations. For example, in the approach to localized disease, the Clinician’s Urology team has been one of the pioneers in the introduction of robotic surgery, with a current experience of over seventeen years, with the aforementioned benefits.
Regarding the field of metastatic and castration-resistant pathology, Gómez Rivas refers to a new ‘big data’ project, called Pioneer and provided with funds from the European Commission and with the participation of various consortia, which will analyze data of patients with prostate cancer and that could be very useful for the daily clinic.
According to Gómez Rivas, coordinator of the metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer area of the aforementioned project, “there are many interesting data. Some of the most striking is the information reported by patients in consultations that is very different from what appears in the trials. The patient profile is different. In a clinical trial all its variables are controlled, but in real life this is not the case. In most cases we expand the indications of a trial to real life and they are almost always beneficial indications. But, nevertheless, it is necessary to cover all the needs in terms of patients and health realities. In this sense, the information provided by ‘big data’ is essential to fill gaps in the evidence generated by the trials”.
In this sense, and as coordinator of the advanced part, Gómez Rivas highlights what the needs and real evidence may be. “For example, and despite the fact that the trials mark an X standard treatment, in real life there are 30% of patients who do not receive that standard treatment. And the exact reasons are unknown. Another of the observed variations is related to the fact that the patients in real practice are older than the mean age of the patients included in clinical trials.
“Real patients have more comorbidities and often present adverse effects that are different from those that appear in the trials. These are very interesting studies and data that must be analyzed in depth to obtain all the answers.”
In addition to the contributions of robotic surgery in changing the localized treatment of prostate cancer, there are also studies and groups focused on focal treatments, thanks to the support of magnetic resonance imaging, and which are based on the administration of cryotherapy, high-frequency ultrasound density, electroevaporation and laser, among others.
longer life expectancy
In the treatment of metastatic and castration-resistant disease, the expert points out that, in the last decade, and more specifically since 2015 in metastatic disease, there are multiple treatments that have increased the life expectancy of these patients. “Previously, in metastatic pathology, with estrogen deprivation therapy, life expectancy was less than five years, depending on the metastatic load. But, with current treatments, survival has increased to more than seven years. There has been a very important positive change taking into account, in addition, that our reference population is very old”. Rachel Serrano
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